The Iraq war was a multiple assault on the foundations and rules of the existing UN-centred world order. It called into question the adequacy of the existing institutions for articulating global norms and enforcing compliance with the demands of the international community. It highlighted also the unwillingness of some key countries to wait until definitive proof before acting to meet the danger of the world's most destructive weapons falling into the hands of the world's most dangerous regimes. It was simultaneously a test of the UN's willingness and ability to deal with brutal dictatorships and a searching scrutiny of the nature and exercise of American power.

The United States is the world's indispensable power, but the United Nations is the world's indispensable institution. The UN Security Council is the core of the international law enforcement system and the chief body for building, consolidating and using the authority of the international community.

The United Nations has the primary responsibility to maintain international peace and security, and is structured to discharge this responsibility in a multipolar world where the major powers have permanent membership of the key collective security decision-making body, namely the UN Security Council. The emergence of the United States as the sole superpower after the end of the Cold War distorted the structural balance in the UN schema. The United Nations is the main embodiment of the principle of multilateralism and the principal vehicle for the pursuit of multilateral goals. The United States has global power, soft as well as hard; the United Nations is the fount of international authority.

Progress towards a world of a rules-based, civilized international order requires that US force be put to the service of lawful international authority. This book examines these major normative and structural challenges from a number of different perspectives.

Editors

Ramesh Thakur is the Senior Vice-Rector of the United Nations University, Japan, and an Assistant Secretary-General of the United Nations. Waheguru Pal Singh Sidhu is a Faculty Member at the Geneva Centre for Security Policy, Switzerland.

Contents Overview

Part 1: Introductory section

Introduction: Iraq's Challenge to World Order

Lines in the Sand: the United Nations in Iraq, 1980-2001

Part II: Structural and Normative Challenges

The Unipolar Concert: Unipolarity and Multilateralism in the Age of Globalization

International Peace and Security and State Sovereignty: Contesting Norms and Norm

Entrepreneurs

The World Says No: The Global Movement Against War in Iraq

Part III: Perspectives from Within the Region

Iraq and World Order: A Lebanese Perspective

Iraq and World Order: A Turkish Perspective

Iran's Assessment of the Iraq Crisis and the Post-9/11 International Order

The Iraq Crisis and World Order: An Israeli Perspective

Egypt and the Iraq War

Reactions in the Muslim World to the Iraq Conflict

Part IV: External Actor Perspectives

The United States and the United Nations in Light of Wars on Terrorism and Iraq

Baghdad to Baghdad: Britain's Odyssey

Explaining France's Opposition to the War Against Iraq

Iraq and World Order: A Russian Perspective

Iraq and World Order: A German Perspective

Avoiding Strategic Failure in the Aftermath of the Iraq War: Partnership in Peacebuilding

Iraq and World Order: A Latin American Perspective

Iraq and World Order: A Pakistani Perspective Iraq and World Order: A Perspective on NATO's Relevance

The Iraq Crisis and World Order: A Perspective from the European Union

Quicksand? The United Nations and Iraq, 2001-2005

Part V: International Legal and Doctrinal Issues

The War in Iraq as Illegal and Illegitimate

Legitimacy as an Assessment of Existing Legal Standards: The Case of the 2003 Iraq War

The Multinational Action in Iraq and International Law

Iraq and the Social Logic of International Security

Justifying the Iraq war as a Humanitarian Intervention: The Cure is Worse than the Disease